S-Class Trials - Red
---- Lucian walked calmly inside the Ziggurat, having previously fought against the Rock Golem and coming out victorious. Looking around, he remembered that he was supposed to meet someone inside it. Apparently, the participants were going to be paired up for this part of the trial which involved travelling further down the Ziggurat. Aka made sure the safety lock on her gun was back on before proceeding towards the darkened pyramid-like building. No need to accidentally pull the trigger, or something bad happening. Her footsteps echoed off the short foyer-like entrance until she spotted a figure up ahead and readied her magic in case it was a foe, before quickly remembering that there wasn't supposed to be a fight this round. At least not with a guild mate. "Yo!" She said and her eyes adjusted to the gloom, seeing her partner and a flaming pedestal with what looked like an unlit candle next to it. "Wait, Lucian is that you?" Lucian quickly turned to look at the newcomer. "Oh, hello!" He waved at her as he stood next to the flames. "You must be...Aka, right?" He thought a bit more, recalling the various names of the other participants of the Exam and their appearances. In fact, Lucian had a bit of a hard time remembering everyone due to how often he stayed away from the guild. "It's really good you've made it this far, I assume you're not hurt from the Golem?" She rolled her shoulder a bit, remembering the nasty punch it had thrown her, and found that it hurt little to none at all. Definitely nothing that would hinder her functionality. "Yeah, I'm actually not that bad. That golem was a bit of a pain though. How about you?" She groaned and came into full view, the fire reflecting into her equally fiery eyes, appearing gold at the moment from the mix of her orange eyes and red flames. Aka set to gathering up the candle and dipped the wax tip into the fire to light it, all the while making casual talk. She internally grinned and let a little show on her face. Some may call her a bit of a pyro, but boy did she like fire. "It was a tricky fight, and I am not that strong physically so I had to use its own attacks against it." He said with a smile as he accompanied her with the flame. "So how is it that we're going to do this?" Lucian asked, looking down at the path which they'd needed to walk. The entrance was clear but the rest was pitch black. He scratched his head a bit. "Hmmmmm, what if we take turns...as in, you'll guard it for some time and when you feel like resting I'll be the one guarding it." "I've got these special chains which are made of and can control elements. With my wind and fire chains, I could keep the fire strong in my turn." Lucian paused a bit. "Sadly, I don't know much about your capabilities, but considering what I've heard, I do think you have something too?" He gestured with his head. "We should probably begin now if that's fine with you." "Yeah, that's a really good plan." She mused on the strategies as she begun to walk down the hall as well, letting the candle do all the lighting. As for her capabilities, she let her Fire Magic: Untamed Flame spark to life in the form of a fiery shield, proving even more luminous light for the hallway as well. "As for protecting the candle," she grinned, "this is why I'm called The Pyromancer. Although I can't do really big, controlled, structures." Which was the reason for the name of her magic. As they made their way through the vine cracked passage, Aka paused, listening intently. She felt unsure, and her gut was trying to warn her of something, but she calmed herself down. "I thought I heard something. Not too sure though." "Light huh? I can provide something else then..." Lucian concentrated his magical energy, summoning his Ball-Chain and imbuing the spell Observe on it. The chain floated in mid-air, glowing a light green. "When using Analysis and Chains together, it acts like some sort of detector...so whenever something approaches us, it should be capable of sensing it." He approached her so they were walking side-to-side. "If I'm not mistaken, there's supposed to be some traps. One to keep us from moving and another to blow off the candle." He checked the chain again and moved a bit in front of Aka. "I'm not sure about enemies though, let's just advance for now-" Lucian suddenly stopped and his arm shot upward with the intent of stopping Aka. The tunnel had suddenly ended. "Look!" He gestured down, pointing at a large pit in front of them. Looking forward one could see the tunnel continued, despite being quite a distance from them. The large hole in the middle would be troublesome. She had been nodding along with what he was saying, until she gasped at the sudden stop, securing the candle. Aka peered at the troublesome challenge and made sure her little wall of fire was strengthened. "Well here is our first problem. And we definitely can't jump across that." She gave a sour look and observed the walls, but finding nothing to her use. Aka thought about it, and she could try to form a bridge from her fire for them to walk on...but she didn't trust her fire magic to be as stable as she was hoping. Knowing her Untamed Flames, they could kick up at any moment and send them plunging to an unfortunate fate. Then an idea. "You use chain magic correct? How versatile are they? Do you think you can form a bridge with multiple chains?" "It's too far away...and the suddenness of it would likely light off the candle" Lucian muttered as he looked around. "Oh, indeed, I could very well try to do that" He smiled at her idea. "Spear-Chain!" Two chains lunged forward and reached the other side of the tunnel. "This may take some minutes..." Many other chains appeared from his arms, they joined the initial two and started to form a larger structure. Some wind blew across the pit, making the structure move slightly to the left. Lucian paused briefly as he tried to see if the wind truly came from the right direction. With everything pitch black, it was hard to tell how truly big this cave was. "I'll try to reinforce the chains which go straight by making chains around them" He turned to look at Aka as more chains appeared, this time surrounding the other chains so they would be more rigid. His eyes widened slightly. "Oh, right, I should make extensions too...and about the candle...do you think you can keep it safe?" As he said so even more chains sprouted, this time from the bridge itself and towards the nearest surfaces of the pitch hole. The chain-spears pierced through the surface to stay rigid. "Yeah, I can keep it safe." To enforce her point, Aka reinforced her flaming shield. There was no wind that was going to put out her fire. She tentatively placed a foot on the slightly swaying bridge, her gut clenching at the sight of down below. "Well here goes nothing." Sweat began to bead on her forehead as she carefully made her way across the structure, trying to steady herself and the candle as much as possible. And luckily enough for them, her magic continued to hold out against the winds from below and she hopped off of the makeshift bridge with a grateful smile. Aka could finally release a breath of relief at being back on solid ground and turned around to see her partner cross. Lucian nodded at her response and waited until she had reached the other side of the bridge, not wanting to risk if their combined weight would or wouldn't affect the rigidness of the construct. With her on the other side, Lucian quickly ran at the middle and reached the other side in less than a minute. "Good, that went okay more than I thought it would." He smiled at her and looked back at the bridge, making it dissipate with a simple gesture of both his hands. "Let's continue then." He gestured at her with his head to move on. Lucian walked alongside her for some minutes until the corridor seemingly got larger and he started to hear something. "Wait! Is this...wind?" He extended his arm in front of her, a signal to stop. Aka groaned in reinforced her fire barrier. "Wind...of course... Why wouldn't there be." She sarcastically remarked and tried her best to peer down the expanse of the dark corridor. Aka extended an arm outwards to conjure some flame in her other hand and light their way, only for it to flame out a second after ignition. "Well, that's out of the question." For a brief moment, she had a slightly amusing, slightly hypocritical, sardonic, thought. Five-year-old her would have balked and freaked out at such a dark sight. And then after all she had endured with her sister, she learned her flame magic so she could light up her own darkest corners whenever she wished. Now she couldn't even light a spark. Instead, she focused on pouring all of her magical power into just the shield, the temperatures rising to very high degrees. A thought snapped into Lucian's mind. "Damnit! Wind, right? Stay behind me! Evolution." Lucian screamed as his book poofed into existence. "Wind God's Chain!" He waved the chain in front of him, spinning it in immense velocity, colliding against the opposing wind as it tried to disperse it. Lucian gritted his teeth. "Looks like I'm managing...so far..." He looked back at Aka as the chain made most of the wind go sideways. "Thankfully the corridor is large...so there's no worry about where the wind goes. Let's continue." Lucian offered, continuing to walk as he waited for her response. They would walk for several more minutes with the help of Lucian's defense as Aka guarded the flame. Aka nodded and kept close to her partner, all the while making sure to not get hit with the chains while Lucian kept the winds at bay. A slight glowing up ahead caused Aka's breath to hitch and speed up her pace a bit. When they both rounded the corner, and the winds ceased their howling, she noticed a large barrier made up of purple run markings. "Hmm, this place sure does love their Jutsu Shiki barriers." She commented, referencing back to the golem as well. She thought long and hard about the slight setback and tried to read the markings to the best of her ability. Unfortunately, she had never paid much attention to reading magical markings or other languages during her childhood tutorials. She was always way too focused on combat techniques and fighting to even think about sitting down and studying boring books. "Do you think I can get through with brute force? Like using my flames or guns?" Aka shifted the candle to her other hand and frowned, testing the barrier by pushing on it, to see it flash red and then go back to normal. "Actually, I could use my weapon to try and rewrite the runes into something that'll let us pass." She may not have paid attention, but no one needed a lot of training to realize the difference between enclosed and release. She's seen tons of other mages do it before, and anything with a pointed tip should work—like her sword. Lucian deactivated his chains, his book poofing into smoke as it disappeared and he breathed heavily. They spent minutes in the tunnel and through all of it, he had his special chains active. "They sure do, haha-" He paused a bit as she analyzed the barrier. "I think I can read them...so you can properly rewrite." Her eyes lit up. "Oh great. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to actually read them." Aka's hand glowed a light blue as she materialized her Fear Weapon: Admiral Storm into her right hand, gripping its familiar pommel. She came to squat next to Lucian, squinting at the markings. "I guess I'll try and find a little opening in the meantime." Lucian mumbled something as he read the runes, almost as if it helped him solve it. "The light must have...remained strong. Only then the path will show itself. Is what it says...hmmm." He scratched his chin. "The only light I can think of is the candle we are protecting..." Lucian looked around, his eyes scanned for anything of different or notable inside the place, which he found. "Hmmmm, maybe those intricate designs are this...path? They converge on the centre..." Aka lowered her fire shield to a barely noticeable simmer, dimming the corridor greatly as the space continued to be lit by the candle. She held the candle up to the barrier and slowly moved it across the area. "So will the candle summon something? Or maybe light up an area? Because we've kept it in good shape." Lucian went for a shrug but took a fright as some of the stones in the ground moved. A pedestal-like structure appeared in the center. "No way..." Lucian muttered, with Aka moving the candle around, that structure only continued to rise until it was about four feet tall. "So, because the candle was strong as when we first lit it...this..pedestal reacted to it?" He smiled, recalling on how important the candle truly was and even then sweating in fear of what if they didn't protect it. They would have needed to return all the way. Lucian got up on his feet, looking at the pedestal. "It looks like it has a hole in the tip..." He looked around. "Well, the barrier is still up." Lucian scratched his chin, thinking what there could be done. Aka was just as surprised and stood up fully. "That's nifty." She joked and stepped up to it, dissipating her fiery shield completely. "If the barrier reacted to the flame, then maybe the flame is the key to a lot more." She mused and observed the tip, before tipping the candle tip into the hole at the top, watching as the top part of the pedestal instantly became engulfed in flames. "Surely that means something good right?" She turned to her partner with a wary smile. Lucian looked around the area and gave a smile. "I think so—" he was cut off by the sudden flashing of red emanating from the barrier. "This can't be good." Aka whisked the candle away and shoved it to Lucian. "Take it real quick, I'll see what I can do." She grimaced when she saw the runes fly off of the barrier to swirl through the air and manifest itself into some creature. "Oh shit, this isn't good. Maybe we can gain up on it. Can you fight and protect the candle?" Some more chains appeared as he used his fire chains to wrap around the candle and secure it to the side. "Yeah, I'm good." He summoned more fire chains, whipping them around. When the creature finished forming, Aka took a slash at it, only for the Jutsu Shiki runes to completely deflect her attack, making it evidently useless. She dodged a stomp and got an idea. "Hey Lucian, try and tie this thing in a spot, so I can work at the runes. Or at least distract it." His chains of fire blazed and went spearing for the monster. "Got it." A couple wrapped around its arm and he barely avoided a fatal looking hit. More chains sprung forth and begun to wrap around the creatures legs. "Better hurry up though." His voice was strained from the sheer force of containing it. Aka wasted no time and instantly set to reading through the runes, keeping one hand lit on fire so she could see. The creature surged to the left and she had to scramble out of the way, before realizing it was trying to destroy their candle. "Oh no you don't." To help Lucian out, Aka sent a short stream of fire in front of it. The thing for stunned, and she read more feverishly, picking things out like: "seal", "crafted", "fire", "made"....there! "Made". She wormed the tip of her blade carefully in between its rune markings, so as not to alert it or disrupt any wordings. With a few deft strokes and movements, she has rewritten the word to "Un-made". Stepping back, she watched as the thing ceased all struggles before the area lit up green and its runes started falling apart, whisked away by a phantom wind. It was then that the barrier finally deactivated, the magic having realized that it's test got bested. Lucian was panting as he dispersed his chains and picked up the candle. "I hope that was the last obstacle." He checked that the candle was still alive and burning. "Candle's all good." With half a thought, Aka's sword de-materialized, and she followed Lucian through the rest of the tunnel, her heart beginning to leap with joy with the few streams of light showing. It was an effort to not take off in a run as she followed Lucian closely. He on the other hand, was indeed getting happy, but kept his Magic ready just in case there was a last minute trick. But after they stepped back outside into the fresh air, he allowed himself to relaxe, a smile on his face. "We did it. We've finished the whole trial." "Damn straight!" Aka jumped and gave him a high five, getting the chance to bask in the sun. "Feels great." Lucian definitely agreed. Category:Dragon Gunfire Category:S-Class Trials Category:Roleplay